I.

General Information
Teacher: Pete Kohnen
Grade Level: 11 and 12
Number of Students: 25
Unit: Ethics and Environmental Impact of Humans
Lesson 3: Introduction to climate change
Approximate Length: 60 min

Targeted Benchmarks:
Students will:
Critically examine evidence for human influenced climate change
Begin to formulate an informed opinion on how much impact on global climate
human activities have had and are potentially having.

NGSS Addressed:

HS-ESS3-2: Evaluate competing design solutions for developing, managing, and

utilizing energy and mineral resources based on cost-benefit ratios

II. Summary of Lesson

I will have a handful of pictures I took during my trip to Glacier National Park. They will
do a See-Think-Wonder for one of them in their journal and then the class will have a
discussion about their thoughts. The students will then get into groups and given a
different climate change evidence article. Some will be supporting the existence of
human influenced climate change and some will be opposed to it. The groups will then
be restructured so that the groups would be mixed and they would discuss their findings.

III. Sequence of Activities

1 Bellwork See-Think-Wonder: Glacier National Park (6 min)

2 Brief Discussion Thoughts on STW and ideas of climate change. (No

confirmation/rebuffing) (8 min)

3 Expert Jigsaw Is human influenced climate change a hoax? (30 min)

4 Social Media Task Make a bold statement about climate change that some people
might find shocking but support it with evidence. Respond to another classmates post.
(Remainder of class time)

IV. Instructional Standards Comments

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High Order Thinking: The expert jigsaw will have them justify a point of view that they
may or may not agree with. Through the discussion, they will be able to examine and
compare the presented evidence, organize their thoughts about it, and then develop their
own view of it.

Deep Knowledge: Since the students are going to be presented with different evidence
and different points of view that theyre going to be expected to explain with another peer
to pool ideas with, deep understanding will be necessary for the students to exhibit to
complete the lesson.

Substantive Conversation: Since the students are presented with different points of
view to explain, they will be expected to discuss the different points of view which will
ultimately help inform their budding opinions.

Connections to the World Beyond the Classroom: Students will be making a bold
prediction about climate change (based on evidence) and posting it to their choice
of social media. They will also be responding to another classmates post. The bold
statement often inspires others to respond and hold discussion.

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